by Barry Kirwan
Micah had barely had time to think about it, but Ash was right, she must be dead, buried in the underground complex. He felt unsteady on his feet, but tried not to let it show.
As soon as they had gone, Micah and Louise faced each other again. She spoke first.
“We have preparations to make, I imagine you do, too.” With that she headed back through the throng, the Alicians following her. Micah and Kat were left alone.
“I’m so sorry about Sandy and Ramires, Micah.” She touched his arm, and lowered her voice. “I know how you felt about her.”
“Do you?” His own voice sounded distant. He’d only just realised exactly how much she’d meant to him, now she was gone. All those years he’d never told her. Too late. It occurred to him to remain on Savange; after all, she was here, somewhere. Maybe she was still alive… But the tunnels had been flooded with fire during the Nchkani attack. Nobody could have survived, not even Ramires, and certainly not Sandy. He knew he wasn’t thinking straight.
A screeching sound made him turn towards the hill where Louise had sent the rifle. A column of purple light shone down and then vanished. Micah presumed the Nchkani had taken the rifle.
Micah leant on Kat’s shoulder a moment. She still had Antonia, and he had to get the other captives back to their loved ones too.
“Let’s go find Aramisk and the others,” he said.
Louise entered the tower. Toran stood with his staff, next to Sandy, who was cuffed, gagged and strapped to a chair. He spoke as Louise entered.
“I heard the deal with Micah on the Allcom. What do you want me to do?”
Louise regarded Sandy. “Carry on as planned. Take her with you. It will weaken Micah believing this one is dead, and unravel him when he finds out she is still alive. He still cares a great deal for her.”
Sandy struggled in her restraints, but to no avail.
“Excuse me, but didn’t Micah just save us?”
Louise lashed out with her claw. Toran blocked it with his staff, but it drove him back a pace.
“If he hadn’t prevented me from handing over the Spider, all our people would still be alive. Use her as you like, to throw him off guard. Kill Micah and the girl-President, Petra, as well as Blake, too, if he still lives. Bring ten captives, then release the virus on Esperia.”
“And what of this blind man, Ash?”
Louise’s claw opened. “You are testing my patience, Toran. Thank yourself lucky I don’t have a replacement to hand. Ash will be spared, his woman, too. Now go!”
Micah was glad to be back aboard Shiva. It was going to be pretty cramped, with sixty passengers – fifty-nine he reminded himself, with a pang. Shiva had run deep scans but found no trace of life in the caverns. Yet he kept seeing her face, expecting her to come sauntering around the corner with her buoyant smile, just like she used to back when they’d been friends. Somehow it didn’t feel like she was dead. His head had accepted it, but his heart hadn’t caught up yet.
Micah shook himself, and realised he’d not seen Antonia amongst the freed captives, nor Kat for a while; she’d disappeared somewhere.
He accessed Shiva via his resident.
Micah bolted from his chair and ran to the medical area, only to find the door sealed, with Kat outside.
“You can’t go in, Micah, but she’ll be fine.”
“What happened?”
“As the captives were escaping the initial assault, the Rapier was hit by a plasma bolt. Antonia was next to a conduit that exploded outwards. She and three others were struck by fragments. Vashta is operating on them right now. They will all live. But she has to operate quickly, before we enter Transpace.”
Micah leant against the door. “Where was she hit?”
Kat avoided his eyes, and took a moment before replying. “In the abdomen. She’ll be fine.”
Something about her reply made him wonder what she wasn’t telling him. But he let it go. “I have to get back to the bridge. Please, when she wakes, give her my… best wishes.”
Kat nodded, her face ashen.
“Don’t worry, Kat, she’s in good hands.”
“Thanks. Now go, Micah. Get us away from here; get us home.”
Micah glanced over to Ramires’ empty tactical station. The last Sentinel, a legend, killed somewhere on the planet. They’d never been true friends, as there had always been underlying tension between them, but Ramires had been steadfast throughout. Micah felt it would have been a better result if Ramires had survived and he had perished. At least Ramires had helped bring the Alicians to their knees, eliminating the threat, perhaps for good. He didn’t know if warriors who fought all their lives craved rest afterwards, but he whispered the words anyway: “rest in peace.” Maybe Ramires and Sandy would be together again now; even if Micah didn’t believe in an after-life, he didn’t rule out the possibility. It would make sense out of such a senseless loss.
Aramisk stood in front of him. He gestured to Ramires’ station. “Would you mind?”
“Thank you, I need something to do.”
The central screen showed the planet from a safe distance, the Nchkani long gone, the sole Alician transport vessel also waiting to observe the destruction of their world. Micah guessed they needed closure.
Shiva informed Micah and Aramisk that it had begun, then added, “You might want to look away. This is a Hell-Class weapon. It is so named for a reason.”
Micah took his command chair, stared at the screen, and braced himself mentally.
A red spot appeared on a major continent, and grew until it looked like a super-volcano. Magma spouted with such violence it shot into space. The volcanic mouth collapsed, leaving an even larger caldera, while red hot molten rock spewed upwards at a terrifying rate, as if the planet was vomiting its core. After several minutes the planet’s surface began to crumple, dimples and gashes appearing on its spherical surface. The caldera imploded and the hole became an open wound, the planet’s interior gushing relentlessly into space. After another minute the stream died down, and sputtered to a dribble. But it wasn’t over. What was left was a shell of a planet, like a cracked and emptied egg. The edges caught fire, burning with a bright blue flame that ate up the shell until the last shred of the planet vanished into blackness.
It didn’t seem right that Sandy and Ramires perished here, no trace of them left to take home. He vowed to make a grave for them as soon as he got back, and then head out into battle, wherever Hellera thought he and Shiva could be useful.
He noticed the Alician vessel preparing to leave, and wondered if any of them recalled departing a dead Earth almost two decades ago.
“Micah, it’s Ash.”
“Ash – are you alright? I wasn’t sure the comms patch was working.”
“It is, but I’ll be out of range any second.”
“Are you okay?”
“We are, so far. Micah, there’s something you need to know, about Louise. She isn’t here. She’s not on the ship.”
The Alician vessel jumped into Transpace. Micah asked Shiva to track them, but they were gone.
Kilaney stared at the star-filled screen, squinting to see the first indication of inbound Mannekhi ships. The dull beat of the TACAS, a device to detect opening Transpace conduits, pulsed steady as a heartbeat. Kilaney knew he had to wait. He got up from his command chair on the Q’Roth destroyer, and turned around to check his crew at their stations. They were all Youngblood volunteers: Siras at the helm, Janine at Tactical, Willem at Systems, and Annie on Comms. Siras was the eldest at seventeen, Janine barely fifteen. Kilaney had taken Vasquez aside when they’d been proposed as the skeleton crew.
“They’re kids, for God’s sake! You know as well as I do, none of us are likely to make it back.”
“You’ve been away too long, Bill. They’re Youngbloods. Do you remember when your blood was young, what it felt like?”
He hadn’t answered. But watching
them now, Kilaney had to admit they were all quick studies, having picked up the skills required to navigate and defend a mesa-class Q’Roth vessel in just a few days. Advanced spatial concepts that had taken him years to master were understood at the first telling by these Genned youngsters. He’d been unimpressed by Micah’s decision to allow the Genning of all human children. Now, for the first time, he could see the point. The inbound Mannekhi turned by Qorall were Level Six; with a normal human crew he’d be overrun quickly, but with Genners aboard he had a fighting chance.
He returned to the command chair built for a Q’Roth general. The three metre recliner dwarfed him, made him seem like a child in an adult’s chair. But he used to be Q’Roth, and though he no longer possessed the six limbs necessary to make full use of it, he knew his way around its controls. He tapped a pad.
“Xenic, any sign yet?” Kilaney glanced at a holo of the entire Esperian system covering twenty light minutes of travel. Xenic’s Mannekhi Spiker was closer to Esperia, embedded well inside the Shrell field. Two ships against fifty didn’t seem like good odds.
“We will know when they arrive. Never hasten an enemy’s arrival; only see that he comes to you.”
Kilaney wasn’t a fan of military epithets, but they were preferable to Xenic telling him to relax. The TACAS pulse increased in pitch and frequency. Then it jumped again, a harmonic of the original steady tone. The Mannekhi were close.
Kilaney decided to air a question he’d harboured since Xenic’s arrival. In battle, your life depended on your brother-in-arms, and he had to know he could rely on the Mannekhi commander.
“Xenic, I know they have been changed by Qorall, but they are – were – Mannekhi. Are you sure you can go through with this?”
There was a pause. “You would not understand. We Mannekhi have not been free for fifty thousand years, always managed with an iron claw by our patrons, any resistance met with brutal punishment. But in our hearts, our very DNA, that resistance, a simmering rage, is always there, deep down. This turning, what Qorall has done to my people… it is too much. I am freeing them.”
Kilaney left it there. He spoke to Janine. “Prepare the Ricochet.” That’s what Kilaney had named it. Hellera had left it behind, cloaked in space until yesterday, when it had suddenly revealed itself, with a message for Kilaney. He’d seen one of these weapons in action before, when a Tla Beth had used it against Mannekhi Spikers. The trouble was, Qorall had seen it, too, and might have developed a counter-measure. Hellera’s message had said it had to be combined with surprise. That meant hitting the enemy as they emerged from Transpace, when they would be vulnerable for a second or two. Kilaney had already primed it for Mannekhi ship signatures.
“Xenic, I want you well out of harm’s way when I launch it.”
“On that you have my complete agreement.”
Kilaney stared at the star-field again, small pinpricks of light, serene, innocent, passive. The TACAS kicked up an octave, the pulses much faster, separating into three closely-matched tones. The TACAS was only approximate; it was difficult to predict exactly where and when ships would emerge from Transpace, but it already told him the Mannekhi attack plan.
“Xenic, they’ll arrive in three waves.”
Kilaney got up from his chair, and stood right next to the large screen. There was a flicker of space, as if a transparent film had momentarily shimmered. “There, Janine,” he said. “Fire.”
At first he couldn’t see the Ricochet’s trajectory, since the studded black sphere had no after-burn, but Willem was able to track it via its transponder, and Annie overlaid its course on the star-field. The TACAS pitch ramped up again, a shrill whine.
Annie shouted above the din. “Sir, do you want me to diminish the alarm?”
He shook his head. The Ricochet accelerated. Where were the Mannekhi ships? Come on. He only had one Ricochet, one shot. The sphere reached the designated area and slowed down, then stopped. Kilaney breathed a sigh of relief. Smart boy!
The bridge was filled with the TACAS alarm, when suddenly it shut off. As Kilaney had hoped, in the area where he had glimpsed the approaching bow wave of the Transpace conduit, ten ships, stretched cones of silver, sprang into view, popping back into normal space-time. He barely had time to make out any details before the Ricochet flared into action. A beam struck one ship, then bounced onto another then another. Within a second, a lattice of orange fire connected all ten ships. One by one they burst into crimson flame then snuffed out.
Thank you, Hellera.
Almost immediately the second wave arrived, this time twenty ships. The device fired at the first ship, but it alone was damaged. No ricochet effect. The other nineteen fired purple beams at the sphere, which exploded silently; shreds of orange splattered across a vast area of space before they dissipated. The nineteen ships charged onwards, heading straight for Kilaney.
Xenic came online. “They’re Dropships, Javelin Class, used for invasion. Once they land they cannot take off again.”
The final wave of twenty ships burst into the sector.
“Back to the Shrell field,” Kilaney said to Siras. The destroyer leapt forward in a single short-system jump.
“Janine, give me an outside view, one million klicks to starboard, enlarged focal area.”
A holo showed a sideways view of the approaching fleet, and the Shrell field with Esperia at its core. The Dropships spread out, a hundred kilometres apart, spearing towards the field. He approached the holo, held out his hands, and flipped it around to get a frontal view. The Dropships were in concentric ring formation: the first ring comprised three ships, the next ring seven, the two outer rings twelve and seventeen respectively. But they were staggered, and they had shields. No beam could hit more than one ship, and no detonation from any of the weapons he had aboard had an effective blast radius larger than fifty kilometres against a shielded ship. The enemy had done their homework.
“Take us out of their path, Siras,” he said.
“Sir?”
Kilaney hadn’t had time to brief his crew on all the contingencies, and now wasn’t the moment to start. “One thousand klicks should do it. Lateral, you choose the direction.”
The helmsman complied, asking no further questions.
Kilaney tapped the ship-to-ship comms pad again. “Xenic, you’d better be ready, they’re coming in hot.”
“I am ready.”
The Dropships seemed uninterested in deceleration, despite the fact that they could almost certainly see the Shrell wires that would razor through any ship, shielded or not.
“Siras, prepare to loop behind them and then chase them in.”
“Sir, there’s no way this destroyer can dodge the wires at their speed. They’re smaller and far more manoeuvrable.”
“I’m aware of that, son. Just follow my orders.”
He watched as the first few Dropships neared the densely packed field that made him think of a ball of barbed wire. Halfway between the outside of the ball and Esperia was Xenic’s ship. But the Dropships were designated Javelin Class for good reason. Travelling point first and at high speed, they were difficult targets, like trying to shoot at an arrow flying towards your face. Still, he would stick to the plan, because he had no better idea. If he’d stayed in their path, he’d have probably taken out three before the others blew him to kingdom come.
The first five ships flew straight into the field like needles.
“On my command.”
He watched the holo, and waited until more than half the ships had entered.
“Now, Siras.”
Although the destroyer was half a kilometre long, it could move very fast in open space, and its inertial dampers worked just fine. Kilaney collapsed the holo with his hands, and got back to his chair.
“Siras, take us in as fast as you can go. Janine, use the forward battery, don’t stop firing till it’s depleted. Willem, let me know if ship integrity is compromised. Annie, no in-comms except from Xenic, but stream our telemetry to Petra
and Vasquez.”
The destroyer plunged into the Shrell field. Siras made fine adjustments that Kilaney knew no ungenned pilot could manage at this velocity, even in a smaller ship. A wash of yellow spurted ahead of them as Janine ignited the main particle cannon, and it gushed forth the heat of a sun’s core, seeking out the rear of the Dropships. Within thirty seconds Kilaney counted five hits. The others accelerated to get out of range, just as Xenic had said they would.
“Don’t let them get away, Siras.”
The destroyer accelerated, the forward view snapping to and fro even though Kilaney felt no movement. Then there was a grating noise and a jolt.
Willem shouted. “Sir, we just lost a piece of the aft superstructure.”
“Keep going, keep firing.”
More clanks, and two more hits. Make that three; no, four. The Dropships were shifting to try and escape, but Siras clung to them. And then Kilaney saw it – a funnel of wires dead ahead. The Dropships slipped through, but they were much thinner… The bastards had lured him into a trap. Dammit, these Mannekhi knew their way round a Shrell field. His destroyer raced towards the wires. He gripped the arms of the chair.
“Siras –”
“No good, Sir,” Siras said. “Willem, now!”
A glistening cocoon ballooned around Kilaney and the chair, snuffing out all noise. Kilaney had forgotten about it, a device on Q’Roth ships to protect the commander, in case… He tried to stand up but the bubble didn’t give him enough room. The destroyer braked hard but there was no saving her. The end of the funnel rocketed towards them. He turned to see Siras hunched over the controls, trying to minimise the impact – no, he was trying to save his commander. The other three also worked feverishly, despite knowing they were about to die.
The upper half of the bridge was shorn off, and Kilaney found himself hurtling through space in the bubble. It rolled, and he saw his ship carved into chunks, like meat through a grinder. He could no longer see the wires; this was an escape pod, nothing more. He tried to catch sight of his crew, but he was already too far away, and the ship fragments sputtered briefly with violet flame before going dark. He saluted his crew, intoning each of their names. As he continued to sail forwards at speed, he toggled the chair’s inertial controls to stabilise the bubble and orient his view towards the planet, the remaining Dropships, and Xenic.